Many a summer with power failures

IF this is the performance of the KESC in April, if this is the heatwave in this month, and if this is the state of our impatience on this count alone, it is truly a fearsome and tormenting scenario that lies ahead, as the long hot summer is only just stepping in. What are we going to do until the end of October or even November? The next six months.

Having said that, and taking into account the fact that Karachi had the highest temperature in this week (41 degrees Celsius) and this coupled with power failures and breakdowns, there is some reason to consider here what a Karachiite has to say on this theme.

He argues vehemently, passionately, that we need to change our lifestyle, and adjust to the fact that there will always be power failures, and that we must now learn to live without electricity for long suffering spells. There is no point in arguing, and demanding electricity, saying that its absence affects work, and life both in the office and at home. Life has to be reorganized into slots when there is electricity, and where it is impossible, it must be accepted. Whatever that means. Why do newspapers write so much about it?

He did not stop here. He went on to argue that most of Pakistan has no electricity, and this was a reference to our rural areas, and slums. What about those poor people who live in villages. What is the quality of their life? They too comprise Pakistan.

One does not hear this kind of view very often, and there is good reason to give some thought to it. Attention turns to the electricity theme once again not just because of the power failures that appear to have been a principal theme this week on these pages, but also because of the summer that has begun to unfold, and spread out its blazing trying canvas. Thank God some of Karachi’s citizens have a rather realistic attitude to this theme. Or even to another related one: water shortage, which reaches crisis proportions so easily, so frequently. They explain that instead of only complaining, they have tried to adapt to the shortages, and reorganize their daily lives keeping these frustrations in mind.

It is also relevant to bring in here such inconsiderate and insensitive citizens who will neither conserve electricity nor water, even in the midst of a crisis. They will demonstrate their familiar, unrestrained extravagance and wasteful consumption of these utilities, reflecting the mindless manners of the new-rich. See the way in which they use their airconditioners, and the way in which they consume electricity; watch the brazen manner in which they water their lawns, and wash their cars, regularly, and defiantly — disregarding what their neighbours or what their community leaders say. If there was a fair sharing and distribution of water and power, and other opportunities and facilities, society would be better off in many ways.

What does an average power failure do, generally speaking? It stops routine. It suffocates, it wears you out, it tires your body and it makes the mind restless, explains one eloquent citizen as we discussed this point, keeping Karachi in mind. Another citizen who sought to adopt a casual, lighthearted approach to the theme, said zealously that if you took a realistic stance it would be that much better, and more bearable.

He argued that those who could afford it should have standby gadgets and equipment if possible. Generators, rechargeable lights and fans, and standby transistor radios, and that power failures at night are times to let the mind wander, and or rest. He went on and on, partly in jest, reminding us that humour was necessary to fight stress in this provincial capital. He has a strong interest in Urdu poetry, and for some odd reason he quoted Ibn Insha’s famous poem from the collection Is basti key koochey mein. The poem is named Farz Karo and here is a couplet from it:

Farz karo ham ahl-i-wafa hon, farz karo deewaney hon,

Farz karo yeh donon batein hootien hon, afsaney hon.

What does this poem have to do with the city’s power crisis, and the water shortage? We asked, in a long argument analyzing the state of the KESC, and Karachi’s water scenario, getting worse every year. He said that “we should imagine sometimes a dream-like scenario in which Karachi’s problems have come to an end, we have all the good things we need, the water, power shortages have disappeared, and thieves and thugs have vanished. There is no harm in only imagining it, my friend,” he underlined, philosophically.

Dream scenarios for our good old Karachi? Not many of us would buy this proposition. There is much too much of impatience and anger at the way in which the KESC functions, and the manner in which water distribution is managed, the way in which citizens themselves show no concern for conservation. Poor show.

Take some of the recent stories on this subject that appeared on these themes, and the photographs published. On Thursday there was a story which said “students suffer most in power breakdowns,” and “mob attacks KESC office.” It made me think of the fact that the annual examinations of Intermediate students begin from 24th April, and wonder whether the KESC would make special arrangements so that the candidates get a decent examination hall environment.

Then comes the news that there has been approved another increase in the electricity tariff, which of course does not ensure that the quality of services provided by the KESC or Wapda will improve. It only means more bills to pay, and higher too. With this there was another story reminding that “People brave hot spell without power.”

From the look of things so far in mid-April, it seems like a repetition of last year.

A conference on Sufism

SCHOLARS differ about the origin of the word, sufi. Some say it is derived from safa (pure) because of the purity of a sufi’s heart while others contend that it comes from soof (wool) as, in the earlier days, they usually wore coarse woollen clothes. There are still others who say that the word sufi was derived from the Arabic safwa which means ‘those who are selected.’ Whatever may be the source of the word, it is accepted that the sufis are those who are seekers of spiritual enlightenment.

The sufis have existed all along, right from the earliest days of Islam. However, their emergence as a group of people did not happen until about two hundred years after the death of the Holy Prophet (PBUH).

This came about as a reaction to the degeneration which had overtaken the Muslim society and weakened the message of Islam. The leadership having fallen into the hands of those who sought temporal rather than spiritual power forced the spiritually inclined to embrace lives of ascetism and develop ways of enhancing their inner devotional state. As such, sufism is considered an esoteric dimension of Islam. The sufi doctrine, therefore, is about evolution that transforms man into a spiritual being. Sufis believe in being in the world but not of it. There goal is to reach a realm of pure spirituality through meditation and prayer. The Muslim sufis seek salvation through outward participation in life and inwardly disentangling themselves from the web of desire.

What has prompted me to write all this is because of the two-day World Punjabi Conference on sufism which concluded in Lahore this week. The sittings held in a local hotel were organized by Fakhr Zaman who heads the World Punjabi Congress. The conference attracted top scholars from all over the country who spoke on different aspects of sufism and highlighted the rich heritage of sufi poetry. As Fakhr Zaman said in his address, it opens new vistas of human values. Punjabi is particularly rich in sufi poetry although no one can forget such ‘founts of inspiration’ as Shah Latif Bhitai, Khushal Khan Khattak, Jam Durak and Habba Khatoon, the 16th century Kashmiri poetess.

This piece would become too long if I started dwelling upon the message of mysticism contained in the evocative poetry of Baba Farid, Shah Husain, Warris Shah, Bulleh Shah, Khwaja Farid and others. Their writings are based on Divine love, and God to them is the beloved. They emphasis that God is present in the heart and all that the seeker has to do is to cleanse it. Needless to add, it is because of the limitations of materialistic knowledge that there is an ever growing interest in sufism. It is the sufis who have emerged as men of conciliation paying emphasis on tolerance an love for their fellow men. As the declaration adopted at the Conference says, “Sufi poetry opens up new directions of thought and calls for a humanistic order free from avarice, extremism and myopic considerations.

ANIS Nagi is producing his quarterly Danishver with regularity. The issue published in March may well be called a Gilani Kamran number. In the pages that follow there is an article about him written with intense feelings by Anis Nagi who had a long association with him. Further up four of his representative poems have been reproduced.

A surprise inclusion in this issue is a short story by, out of all people, Nasreen Qureshi.

The review of Dr Javed Iqbal’s best selling autobiography, Apna Gareban Chaak, by Munshi Chriagh Din, (anyone knows who he is) is quite readable but after going through it one does not know whether it is for or against the author.

Another book review, this time by Chaudhry Ramzan Ali (?) is about the history of Urdu literature compiled by Dr Tabassum Kashmiri. Thank God, not many adverse comments have been made. However, the same cannot be said about the book reviews which follow. These are about the collection of writings by women published by the Academy of Letters, the Urdu translation of Brothers Karamazov and Shehrzad ke Naam by Intezar Hussain. — ASHFAQUE NAQVI